Criticism of the Impure Mind: "Positive Thinking"

There is a science to the positive aspects of life. Solutions-oriented, she cares about improving what already exists by developing inner strengths. Contrary to positive thinking, which is more a matter of faith, positive psychology is based on measurable scientific elements.

“Gratitude is not only the greatest virtue, but also the mother of all others.”

— Cicero.

If you told your friends that you were going to see a psychologist, it's very likely that their reaction would be, "What's wrong?" In fact, traditionally psychology has focused on dysfunctions and the various ways to treat them. Positive psychology, on the other hand, explores how ordinary people can become happier and more fulfilled. She explores what gives meaning and purpose to our lives.

What it is

Positive psychotherapy is a direction centered on conflict, which is resolved with the help of the abilities (innate and acquired) of the person himself. It is widely used in both psychology and psychiatry for the treatment of serious personality and behavioral disorders. Rooted in transcultural psychodynamic psychotherapeutic methods. Initially, Pezeshkian called his brainchild differential analysis. The basis is a humanistic point of view.

Pezeshkian positive psychotherapy has been actively promoted in Germany since 1968. But she received recognition much later. In 1996 it was declared an effective and official direction by the European Association of Psychotherapy. Following her in 2008, the same thing was proclaimed from the high rostrum of the World Council of Psychotherapy.

Professor Pezeshkian in the last years of his life (died in 2010) constantly traveled around the world with seminars, symposiums, and public lectures. Conducted interviews with the press, television and radio. To date, more than 40 positive psychotherapy centers have been opened in different countries. For the active implementation of his method, the doctor was awarded many awards:

• Germany's main medical award "Richard-Martin-Price" for quality assurance,
• Ernst von Bergmann Prize,
• Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany,
• International Avicenna Prize for Ethics in Science,
• Nobel Prize nomination.

Many of his books have been translated into Russian:

1. "Positive psychotherapy - theory and practice of a new method."
2. "Positive family psychotherapy."
3. "Psychosomatics and positive psychotherapy."
4. “Psychotherapy of everyday life: conflict resolution training.”
5. “The merchant and the parrot. Eastern stories and psychotherapy."

Pezeshkian created positive psychotherapy based on transcultural studies of more than 20 world cultures. Therefore, many call his direction innovative and interethnic.

In everyday life you can find different names: positive dynamic psychotherapy, differential analysis, transcultural psychodynamics and others.

Complexities of etymology. Despite the fact that in PP there is a moment that provides the patient with an exclusively positive attitude, the name of the direction has nothing to do with the Latin word “positivus”, which translates as “positive”. It goes back to another Latin concept - “positum”, which means “occurring, actual, given.”

Founders and history of development

This is one of the youngest areas of science about the human psyche. It can be considered a continuation of humanistic psychology, which originated in the middle of the last century in the works of such famous scientists as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and many others. In the book “Motivation and Personality” by A. Maslow, the term “positive psychology” was used for the first time.

But the founder of this area as a scientific direction is considered to be Martin Seligman, who was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1998. At the same time, positive psychology received official recognition from the world community of psychologists.

The main bases for the development of this area can be considered the “Center for Positive Psychology” at the University of Pennsylvania and the “Gallup Center” in the USA. There is also a Center for Applied Positive Psychology in the UK.

In 2011, for the first time in Russia at Moscow State University for the Humanities. Sholokhov, a master’s program was opened in the specialty “Positive Psychology”. Today we can confidently talk about the rapid development and increasing spread of this area of ​​psychological science.

The essence

The whole essence of positive psychology is revealed in the etymology of the term. It works with the problem that exists at the moment and which requires an urgent solution right now. Nosrat Pezeshkian believed that while in other directions they were getting to the bottom of the true causes of the conflict (psychotrauma, disorder), precious time was wasted. Then it is also spent on the possible elimination of provoking factors. And only after that the work begins directly with the problem itself. And during this period it already manages to grow, take root and move into an advanced stage.

Considering these moments to be a clear disadvantage of most psychotherapeutic directions, Nossrat Pezeshkian created positive psychotherapy with a completely different goal - to work directly with the problem situation. Without delving into childhood behavioral patterns and long-standing psycho-traumatic factors, he tried to quickly rid a person of anxious thoughts, depression, nervousness, and personality-behavioral disorders before they became advanced.

This gives excellent and fast results. People get a solution to their problem in just a few sessions, without going deep into the past and without bringing up unpleasant memories in the recesses of memory. While maintaining peace of mind, they also learn to independently get out of difficult situations later.

The main objectives of positive psychotherapy:

• psychotherapeutic aspect - treatment of personal behavioral disorders,
• pedagogical aspect - education and prevention of deviant behavior and social maladaptation of children and adolescents,
• transcultural-social aspect - development and improvement of intercultural consciousness (study of national traditions that influence the behavior and internal state of their bearers),
• interdisciplinary aspect - interaction and integration (as far as possible) of other psychotherapeutic areas under a common auspices.

Such a variety of aspects that specialists have to work with makes it even more attractive.

Advantages

The “here and now” principle is actively used in neurolinguistic programming, psychodrama, client-centered psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, and non-directive hypnosis. And yet, work in these areas takes too long, since they practically do not draw on a person’s internal resources, helping him with external methods. Most of them are focused on eliminating the symptoms rather than the conflict itself.

Given all this, it is not surprising that positive psychotherapy has had such success. Its advantages over other areas:

• conflict-oriented rather than symptom-centered,
• short-term: on average, 20 sessions within the framework of psychology and no more than 50 sessions of psychotherapy (taking into account the final recovery from fairly severe disorders),
• universality: specialists do not have to look for different methods, techniques and techniques - here everything works to eliminate the conflict almost instantly,
• internationality: this is cross-cultural psychotherapy that integrates the philosophy and intuitive wisdom of the East and the rationalism and scientificism of the West,
• active involvement of the patient in the process of working through their conflicts,
• working with a person as an integral system, and not with his individual thoughts, experiences, conflicts,
• active use of parables and metaphors as a psychotherapeutic tool for working with patients,
• future-oriented, despite the “here and now” principle: positive psychotherapy teaches how to cope with problematic situations in the future.

In addition to all these advantages, this direction also offers methods for working with problems that arise for psychotherapists themselves. For practicing specialists this is a significant advantage. One of the most attractive points for patients is that short-term positive psychotherapy allows you to eliminate conflict in a minimum number of sessions. Where Gestalt therapy takes six months, PP is managed in one and a half months.

What is “positive psychology”?

Positive psychology is a branch of psychology whose subject is the positive potential of a person. Positive psychology does not deal with your shortcomings, which lead to mental problems and illnesses, but with your strengths, your potential. This does not mean that positive psychology is only suitable for people who do not have psychological problems. Not at all. It’s just that positive psychology has a different way of working. When solving these problems, the main emphasis is on activating the positive potential of a person.

“Positive” comes from the Latin word “positum” - previously given, real and means coming from the real. A positive interpretation presupposes knowledge about suffering and illness, pain, worries and sorrows during illness, but at the same time other aspects of the disease are positive: its function, its meaning for a person. What really exists are not only diseases and disorders, not only failed attempts to solve problems, but also the abilities and capabilities inherent in each person that can help him find new, different, better solutions. When visiting a psychotherapist, the client brings not only problems, but also possibilities for solving them. A psychologist helps to rethink conflicts and illnesses and see them in a different light.

Basic principles

Positive psychotherapy is based on three “pillars” - three basic principles. Each of them corresponds to a specific technique.

The principle of balance

It corresponds to the methodology of meaningful differential analysis of personality psychodynamics. The name just sounds so scary, but in reality everything is simple. Positive psychotherapy works with a person’s innate (primary) and acquired (secondary) abilities. The specialist tries to identify and differentiate them at the very first sessions.

Most often, the problem arises due to the fact that the former turn out to be undetected and rebel somewhere from within, while the latter, although lying on the surface, do not find a field of application. The task of the PP is to harmonize and literally “bring out” innate talents and at the same time help to actualize acquired ones.

Principle of Hope

It corresponds to the method of a positive approach in seeing innate and acquired abilities, as well as human capabilities. There are patients whom one or another referral refuses because it does not have the necessary tools to work with it. But here psychotherapists do not have the right not to believe in a successful outcome. Even if the case is unique or advanced, it is necessary to act as if recovery will come tomorrow. Moreover, most of the hope is placed on the internal resources of the patient himself.

The principle of self- and mutual assistance

It corresponds to a metamodel that involves 5 steps. Its goal is to harmonize, adapt and develop any personality in the shortest possible time. And if at the very first sessions the work is carried out mainly with the patient himself, then at the end he is given an algorithm on how to improve the life of not only himself, but also those around him. Moreover, this list is quite impressive: loved one, family, business partner, colleagues, employees of the organization, community. The humanistic orientation of positive psychotherapy manifests itself most clearly in this principle.

However, these principles do not exhaust the methods of positive psychotherapy. In the hands of specialists there is a much richer toolkit.

Positive psychotherapy

Positive psychotherapy is designed to explain these principles to a person, to “reprogram” him to be “positive,” that is, to perceive life as it is. Look for an opportunity in any problematic situation to show your hidden resources in order to make your life better in the future. Positive psychology does not have the goal of putting “rose-colored glasses” on a person, but only offers to look at life with the naked eye in order to adequately assess what is happening, and not from the negative side.

Doing this with the help of a specialist is much easier than doing it alone, which is why positive psychotherapy is very popular today. After completing the course, people note that their lives begin to improve. But in fact, problematic situations do not disappear anywhere, a person simply begins to react to them as an integral attribute of normal life, and uses any “trouble” as an opportunity to achieve something more. Thanks to the hidden capabilities of the body, even very serious diseases can be overcome.

Perhaps, thanks to the further dissemination of this technique, after some time all people on Earth will become healthy and happy.
Positive psychology was last modified: April 20, 2020 by Elena Pogodaeva

About abilities

Innate and acquired abilities are key concepts. Moreover, we are talking not so much about talents, giftedness or genius, but about universal human values. For example, from the point of view of the PP, from birth, everyone has two leading abilities (needs) - to know and to love.

The ability and need to know

This is the rational, intellectual essence of man. The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for it. Firstly, it is more developed among mathematicians, physicists and people in other specialties related to the exact sciences. Secondly, given the integration of cultures, from the point of view of positive psychotherapy, this ability is a priority for residents of North America and Western Europe.

This is what becomes the main focus when resolving a conflict, for example, for a chemist or a German. The therapist invites them to eliminate it through logical thinking. Constant quarrels with your wife? Because of which? Doesn’t cook, doesn’t wash or iron clothes, doesn’t look after the children, demands a lot of money? Are there any positive moments in living together with her? What is more: advantages or disadvantages? With the help of such leading questions and recording clear answers, a comparative table at the end of the first session, the rationalist sees that there is no longer any point in being with such a spouse and the only way out of this situation is divorce (or vice versa).

The ability and need to love

This is the emotional, sensual spiritual essence of a person. The left hemisphere is responsible for it. It is developed among representatives of humanitarian and creative professions, as well as among residents of the East and South America.

If an artist or a Japanese man comes to a positive psychotherapist with a family problem (quarrels with his wife), it is useless to ask them those clear, rational questions that worked so effectively in the previous case. The answers to them will be vague, long and indefinite, which will only further confuse the client about what he wants and delay the session.

This requires other methods and techniques. For example, metaphors or parables. Seeing his own family life as a damaged canvas or dried out paints, the artist will be able to decide for himself whether to revive them or replace them with new ones. Having heard the story about the stupid wife, the Japanese will understand how to fix everything.

"Supermen"

The most difficult thing to work with is people who have a mixture of physiological abilities and cultural and historical predispositions. For example, with a Chinese computer scientist or an English musician. On the one hand, they are driven by the most developed hemisphere. On the other hand, ethnicity. In such cases, it is necessary to identify the dominant of these factors and work with an orientation towards it. In this case, it is necessary to eliminate the eternal internal conflict between these two entities.

This intercultural approach allows positive psychotherapy to work with a person of any nationality, taking into account his ethnic and cultural-historical predispositions. This gives excellent results.

Stages and methods

Stages

In resolving any conflict, positive psychotherapy takes the patient through five mandatory, sequential levels:

1. Distancing from the situation that provoked the conflict.
2. Its detailed study.
3. Situational agreement.
4. Verbalization.
5. Expanding the boundaries of goals.

All these stages have only one goal - here and now to save a person from a problem, help him cope with it and move on without an aggravating load. All patients, without exception, undergo this regimen. Regardless of what they came with - an ordinary domestic quarrel (interpersonal conflict) or serious behavioral deviations (mental disorder).

Methods

At these stages, psychotherapists use different techniques, techniques and methods to achieve the goal at each specific level. Some of them are universal and are actively used in almost all areas of psychology, pedagogy, and psychotherapy:

• question-answer technique,
• speaking,
• visualization,
• identifying current abilities using the survey method.

But in the arsenal of positive psychotherapy there are also specific techniques and techniques developed specifically for it:

• formalized diagnostic interview with closed questions,
• stories, fairy tales, parables,
• metaphors,
• multicultural approach,
• complementary approach strategy,
• a selection of examples of such conflicts.

Techniques and exercises

Positive psychotherapy is also good because many of its techniques and exercises can be used independently to eliminate minor internal disagreements. They can be used in moments of unbearable fatigue, the emergence of interpersonal conflict, obsessions, or the awakening of internal complexes. Judging by the reviews, when done correctly they give excellent results.

Sanogenic thinking

An excellent exercise for those who like to blow every problem out of proportion and see only the bad in everything. How to do it: As soon as any conflict occurs, an unpleasant situation is created, something good needs to be considered in it. Sometimes this can be incredibly difficult, but the effectiveness of this method will not take long to show itself.

Moreover, this also applies to physiology. For example, your heart sank. It would seem, what is the advantage of this? From the point of view of positive psychotherapy, any pain (both physical and psychological) is a signal to take timely measures to treat it. The sooner this is done, the fewer negative health consequences there will be in the future. Most often, this exercise is prescribed to hypochondriacs.

Perfect day

Positive psychotherapists recommend performing this exercise, if possible, once every 1-2 weeks for those who are dissatisfied with their life, are mired in routine, and are forced to constantly do what they need, and not what they want. It also helps cope with depression and internal complexes.

The task is as follows. Make a detailed plan for your ideal day - the way you would like to spend it, without regard to anyone’s opinion and guided solely by your inner desires. But you need to do this in as much detail as possible, as if you were creating a routine for your normal day tomorrow. That is, you need to indicate what you would like to eat for breakfast, where you will go, who you will call. The next step is probably already clear: live this day as you planned it, as much as possible.

Proverbs

For every life situation, the inhabitants of the East have their own wise parable, which teaches how to act correctly in a particular conflict and who is really to blame. If every married couple had a volume of such allegorical stories in their library, there would be much less quarrels.

For example, a typical situation for a modern family: both the wife and husband believe that they both fulfill their assigned responsibilities 100%. The first cooks borscht and raises children, the second brings money. However, they do not provide any mutual assistance to each other. The parable “Distribution of Responsibilities” comes in handy here, which tells that this state of affairs led the spouses to the fact that their house burned down.

How to use this technique yourself? In the age of the Internet, you don’t even have to buy a collection of parables. If you are faced with a problematic situation, you type it into the search bar (boyfriend cheated on you, spreading rumors, bad mother, unfair boss), and next to it - the word “parable”. You will be surprised how many instructive stories the East has created on your topic. Read, learn, and heal.

Positive names and labels

Judging by the reviews, the exercise is incredibly effective, although difficult. The task is to remove from your environment all speech clichés with a negative emotional connotation. This should apply to both small things and more significant moments.

You will have to work out many nuances: looking in the mirror, you cannot call yourself old and fat - only wise and appetizing, the boss is not a boor and a tyrant, but a person with a very complex, but original character, and you do not have a weak ego - just a strong ego sleeping You can start by pronouncing it out loud, and then work on mental formulations.

Positive psychology

Positive psychology is a branch of psychological knowledge and psychological practice, the center of which is the positive potential of a person (as an individual and as a member of various human communities).

The goal is a scientific and psychological study of optimal human functioning, the search for factors that would contribute to the prosperous existence and flourishing of individuals and communities.

Positive psychology arose in the late 1990s mainly on the initiative of the American psychologist Martin Seligman and his colleagues J. Weillant, E. Diener, M. Csikszentmihalyi and others, although the ideas of positivity in psychology and psychotherapy were discussed earlier.

Seligman and his followers believe that the paradigm of modern psychology must be changed: from negativity to positivity, from the concept of illness to the concept of health. The object of research and practice should be the strengths of man, his creative potential, the healthy functioning of the individual and the human community. Positive psychology seeks to draw the attention of psychologists to what people do well, to understand and use in psychological practice the adaptive and creative elements of the human psyche and behavior, to explain in psychological terms “why, despite all the difficulties that surround them in the outside world, most people live meaningful lives that they can be proud of” (Sheldon and King 2001, p. 216).

Psychology now deals primarily with what is bad in human life and in relationships between people. She seems to have “forgotten” about strengths, concentrating on human weaknesses, focusing primarily on what a person “lacks.” Excessive attention is paid to such phenomena as “diseases,” “distress,” etc. In modern clinical psychology, the so-called DSM (DSM) is an 800-page classification of human misfortunes used for diagnostic purposes. As a result, for example, we know a lot about the psychology of prejudice, violence, but we know nothing about the psychology of generosity, heroism, etc.

According to Seligman, modern psychology has essentially “become victimology (from the Latin victima - victim).” A person is considered in it as a fundamentally passive being with reduced personal responsibility, etc. “learned helplessness”, when he is affirmed in the thought that he will always be a victim of other people or circumstances. The efforts of psychologists are traditionally aimed at increasing people's self-esteem. In particular, low self-esteem is believed to lead to depression, teenage pregnancy, suicide, violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and increasing self-esteem may be the cure for all these ailments. However, for example, suicide bombers, leaders of criminal organizations and child rapists have high self-esteem.

The movement for high self-esteem is now very popular, primarily in the United States, among teachers, psychotherapists, and parents (to a large extent, this is the result of the work of humanistic psychologists who argue that people should always feel good). Seligman does not agree with this and believes that self-esteem serves as a device showing the state of the human mental system. So it turns out: when everything is good in your life, your self-esteem is high, when difficulties arise, your self-esteem decreases, which, in particular, leads to depression. Depression is now actively growing younger, although the entire entertainment industry is working for the younger generation. Thirty years ago, the average age of people suffering from depression was 29.5; now it is 14.5; depression has become a disease of adolescents. Medicines can't always help overcome it, and if there's one thing positive psychologists suggest we should teach our children, it's realistic optimism, which is based on people's personal responsibility and what they do well.

There are three main sections of positive psychology:

1) subjective feeling of happiness (positive emotions - pleasure, satisfaction with life, a feeling of closeness, constructive thoughts about yourself and your future - optimism, self-confidence, full of energy, “vitality”);

2) the highest individual psychological human qualities (wisdom, love, spirituality, honesty, courage, kindness, creativity, sense of reality, search for meaning, forgiveness and sympathy, humor, generosity, altruism, empathy, etc. (we can say that positive psychology deals with what in the history of humanities were called “virtues”));

3) positive social institutions (democracy, healthy family, free media, healthy workplace environment, healthy local social communities).

According to positive psychology, human happiness is not the result of the “work of genes” or the “work of fate” - a person can live happily using the strong qualities inherent in him and constituting his qualitative specificity.

Only by understanding and adequately using them can one truly help a person achieve satisfaction with life, realize all the opportunities that fate gives us, and actually do more in private life (for example, for one’s family), in one’s professional activities, for society (the local community and humanity in in general.

Higher human qualities also constitute a necessary resource for overcoming negative mental states (for example, depression).

The concept of “flow”, introduced by M. Csikszentmihalyi, states that for each person there are types of activities that allow him to do exactly what he wants. Time seems to stop, and a person only dreams that this activity will never end. When he does something that he doesn’t want to do and things often turn out badly for him, then we can say that he is “out of flow.” For example, like a skier who, instead of enjoying the view of the mountains, thinks that he is about to fall and is puzzled by how to behave to prevent this from happening. A number of researchers in positive psychology (E. Diener, D. Kahneman) study subjective (psychological) well-being.

Is material well-being and its increase sufficient in a psychological sense? Will a person be happier if he becomes the owner of even more money, houses and cars? The results of a study by American social psychologist D. Myers showed that while the average income of Americans doubled from 1960 to 1990, the percentage of people who consider themselves happy decreased significantly. Although many people subjectively associate happiness with money and material well-being, the unhappiest (according to psychological criteria) American teenagers live in rich families.

Previously, psychologists assumed that if a person managed to get rid of negative emotions, positive ones would automatically take their place. But if a person, for example, has a job and enough money, will he stop worrying about one reason or another and automatically move on to a happy existence? In order to become an optimist, it is not enough just to stop being a pessimist.

The fundamental tenets of positive psychology in relation to psychological counseling and psychotherapy are to identify a person's strengths. Let's imagine, following Seligman, a waitress who comes to a psychotherapy appointment with a series of “requests”, and in the end you realize that the main problem is that she, in fact, hates her job. You carefully analyze what her strengths are. For example, this is communication with other people, and let’s say, with your help, she will be able to redefine her professional activity: instead of thinking of it as the need to carry heavy trays (which she actually hates), she will begin to perceive it as psychological work with the goal of making customers (restaurant visitors) happier. Undoubtedly, she will cope well with this, since she has excellent abilities for this.

Like scientific psychology, psychotherapy has so far also worked with human weaknesses (and this is quite difficult, both for clients and psychotherapists), but should also rely on a person’s strengths. If you interact with people on the basis of what they do well, they will be happy to talk about it - this is not just a technique for establishing rapport with a client, but a therapeutic strategy in its own right and, it can be assumed, that if a person devotes his life to developing his positive qualities, his shortcomings and problems will go away on their own or will become less painful for him.

Positive psychology is not an independent section of modern psychology, but rather a movement closely related to the whole variety of modern psychological research and practice. Moreover, the work is carried out at several levels at once: biological, personal, level of interaction between people, institutional, cultural and global (Seligman, Cikchesmihai, 2000). Basically, empirical research is carried out in positive psychology and its topics are very diverse. What is Merry Christmas? What higher human qualities are a positive alternative to greed? How can positive emotions prevent people from feeling depressed and lonely? How does a person’s mood affect the functioning of their immune system? What are the specifics of models of positive personal development? Such acute social problems as globalization, modern economic and political life are also the focus of attention of researchers in the field of positive psychology. Positive psychology is currently a dynamic, rapidly developing discipline in which scientific-psychological and humanistic-psychological tendencies struggle (and at the same time complement each other). Already in scientific psychology at the beginning of the 20th century. There have been attempts to synthesize various directions and approaches towards the concept of positivity.

For example, classical behaviorism, which arose as a reaction to the shortcomings of Wundt's introspective method and to advances in the study of animal psychology, and which from the very beginning maintained that everything in man can be changed in a positive direction, was criticized by its younger followers for taking into account real complexity human behavior and psyche. From the point of view of classical psychoanalysis, man is negative by nature (the unconscious part of the human psyche prevents a person from seeking happiness - in this regard, it can be argued that Freud developed “negative psychology”), and neo-Freudian movements emphasize the positive nature of man. Both classical psychoanalysis and classical behaviorism assumed that people are influenced by fundamental motivational factors such as aggression, selfishness and the desire for simple pleasures - from this point of view, any social interactions in people are possible only through the control of their emotions. The consequence of such assumptions is the Social Darwinian idea of ​​“survival of the fittest” (Darwin himself did not share this idea!) - the opposite point of view has been confirmed in recent psychological research (Buss, 2000), according to which socialization and the ability to live in groups represent adaptive traits. In positive psychology, positive emotions, as well as negative ones, are part of human nature and are evolutionarily determined. Therefore, we cannot completely get rid of negative emotions, we just need to provide more space for positive ones in human life. For example, phobias, from an evolutionary point of view, are psychological mechanisms that allow one to avoid potentially dangerous situations. There are completely surmountable phobias, but if, for example, you have agorophobia (fear of open spaces and public places), then psychotherapy can help you somehow, but it will not make you really enjoy walking around large supermarkets and attending rock shows. outdoor concerts.

Humanistic psychology arose as a doctrine that opposed itself to positivism, the scientistic movement in psychology, both in the “form of behaviorism” and in the “form of psychoanalysis.” At the same time, humanistic psychology experienced a strong influence of counterculture, manifested in the desire to self-actualize without committing oneself to other people, in faith in a person’s ability to self-improvement, in distrust of economic and political ways of improving human existence, in the importance of self-disclosure of personality “here and now” , hedonism, irrationality and the occult.

Some historians of positive psychology point to the following sequence of “revolutionary challenges”: humanistic psychology is a challenge to psychoanalysis and behaviorism, positive psychology is a challenge to humanistic psychology in the direction of greater scientificity. The movement involves researchers representing a variety of sections of psychological knowledge and practice (including postmodern orientation) and they are united by a positive view of man, his nature, development, activity, attitude towards the world, himself and others. So, it can be argued that positive psychology, being an indicator of integration trends in modern psychological science and practice and striving to increase the significance and value of psychological science in the eyes of society, appeared in the context of not only certain historical and scientific, but also specific historical and cultural circumstances. For the further development of positive psychology, a deeper definition of positivity as a proper psychological concept is necessary. In this regard, the theoretical developments of domestic psychologists, for example, the cultural-historical psychology of L. S. Vygotsky, can provide significant assistance. In particular, in this vein, it is necessary to rethink the legacy of Auguste Comte, understanding that he used “positivity” not only as a scientific principle itself, but also as a kind of moral ideal, as well as the works on “positive thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale (Shapiro, 2004 ). Positive psychology is increasingly gaining weight in the modern psychological community and, despite its youth, is now quite popular among researchers, practitioners, teachers, especially young people. The first working meeting on positive psychology took place in the town of Akumal (Mexico) in January 1999. A postgraduate training program for specialists in positive psychology is being developed, books are being published, various programs and Internet resources are being deployed, and working contacts are being established between researchers in many parts of the world. Since 2002, the Gallup Institute has become the venue for annual international conferences on positive psychology, in which up to 400-500 psychologists take part. The European Association of Positive Psychology is also expanding its activities.

In Russia, the Synton approach and the activities of Training are close to the direction of positive psychology.

Criticism of positive psychology

Positive psychology has its critics. See→